Films that follow a character for years are typically handicapped by the requirement to have two or more actors taking the role; even if the performances are not uneven, the suspension of disbelief required can be fatal.
The new film by the stylistically adventurous Linklater solves that problem in the boldest imaginable way: by choosing an actor and waiting for him to grow up. Shot over 12 years, a few days each year - the total shooting time was barely five weeks - it follows a Texas youngster Mason (Coltrane) from primary school to college.
It was a mammoth gamble both for Linklater and the producers, who agreed to finance a project with no prospect of return for 12 years, at the risk of collapse if a car ran a red light. And to say that the gamble paid off is an understatement. Boyhood is an exhilarating and enthralling masterwork, a landmark in American cinema and a celebration of what is means to move from boy to man.
Watching Coltrane's face change from angelic - in the opening shot, as he gazes at the sky, he resembles Scarlett Johansson - to the shy, sensitive and achingly handsome young man of the final scene is far from being the film's only, or even chief, pleasure. Remarkably, for a film about change over time, Boyhood holds us so tight in each scene, that the past and the future seem, sometimes frighteningly, remote.
In contrast to the standard coming-of-age trope in which a single childhood event creates the later adult, Boyhood suggests that we are all just the accretion of our pasts.
